Back during the Great Depression times were hard for everyone. For the residents of Glouster, Ohio it was no different. Glouster was a coal mining town at that time and mining was the primary occupation for the entire town. And the coal trains ran right through town.
People didn’t worry too much about pollution in the thirties, or what pronouns to use, for that matter. They had other things to worry about. Real things. The miners would go for days or even weeks without ever seeing daylight, starting a shift in the mines before sunrise and ending it only after the sun had set. These were hard times and these were hard men. Today we worry about getting our coffee breaks and our paid vacations. Back then they worried about dying in a mine fire, or a roof collapse crushing them to death.
Dad was a young boy at that time and the boys of Glouster needed to do what they could to help with the needs of the family. From hunting to provide food for the family to everyday chores, they did what they could. Since most of the homes back then were heated with coal it sometimes fell to the boys in the family to help by providing coal for heating and firewood for the wood stoves. And remember, the coal trains ran right through town.
When a train would pass through the area, there was one place very close to town where they had a long, steep uphill grade where the coal laden trains would be slowed down as they climbed it.
Dad was one of the older boys then and in that capacity had an unofficial responsibility to help the other boys in procuring coal. So, as the train slowed to a crawl climbing that grade these boys would run along beside the coal cars, get a good grip, and pull themselves aboard. Clambering to the top of the pile of coal, they would furiously begin to throw the coal to the side of the tracks below. They would continue as long as they could before the train started to pick up too much speed. Then they would jump from the train and go back to collect their coal.
While the older boys were busy on the coal cars the younger boys and the girls would be doing what they could, as well. They would be collecting the purloined coal from beside the tracks and rushing with it to their homes.
I don’t know why the coal companies allowed this. They were paying the miners less than a dollar a ton to mine the coal, so it was probably a small enough loss to them that the expense of stopping it would be greater than the actual loss.
